Mind's Eye
by girlfromsouth
Summary: Eowyn's daydream


"If I live, I will come, Lady Eowyn, and maybe we will ride together."  
  
--Aragorn to Eowyn, cut from the text of RoTK  
  
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When the Lady Eowyn caught a spare moment she always indulged in the same daydream.   
  
While she changed linens in the sick room, fed the refugees that crowded the stops of Edoras or lay in her bed at the end of the day and wished for sleep, she thought about it. This dream of hers was near and dear to her heart. It helped the endless days of fear, of waiting for attack, of longing and worry almost bearable.   
  
The dream, of course, was about Aragorn.   
  
He'd been missing for nearly two days. The dream had existed for longer than that, of course, but had only heightened in frequency since Legolas had reported his disappearance. It was simple, really, and she knew it, but she didn't care.   
  
Sometimes Eowyn disgusted herself with her own girlishness.   
  
She missed Aragorn, always. Every moment a feeling crept round her heart that made her chest as tight as if she were suffocating. She refused to accept that she should never be able to see him again, to tell him everything that was in her heart.   
  
So Eowyn indulged in the dream. It was always the same. With Aragorn missing, possibly dead, she took comfort from it and drew strength.   
  
In her dreams, there were fields. They were lush; rolling and green and spread as far as you looked. The plains of Rohan as they must have been in the ancient times. Perfect. She and Aragorn rode these fields in her dreams, rode on a perfect set of matched horses that ran like the winds they were named for.  
  
They rode for a full day, and talked. Eowyn always imagined that they would talk of everything under the heavens. The things the men of Eodoras excluded her from, because for all that she was a King's daughter and a warrior she was still a woman. Aragorn talked to her, at length of religion and duty and honor. He sang her songs and told her stories and legends.   
  
Eowyn asked about the Elves and the Fellowship and what it had been like to know Gandalf the Grey. She had ever only met one wizard before Gandalf arrived in their court, the mild-mannered Radagast, who had been kind to her and tended the horses with such skill. She respected this strange Gandalf the White, but he intimidated her in a way she chose not to consider.   
  
They rode to a lake in the foothills of the mountains to the west of Rohan. It was hidden among the trees and very few people ever came to it, especially if it wasn't their initial destination. Eowyn's mother had told her about it when she was very young. It was still beautiful; the war around them had not touched it.   
  
They sat here, the two of them, and the sounds, the smells, the feelings in this part of her dream were so vivid that Eowyn ached inside.   
  
The lush smell of the foliage, the sounds of the water hitting the shores of the lake, the birds that cawed in the trees. And mostly, even in her head, she could perfectly picture every inch of Aragorn's form. His scent invaded her nostrils; she thrilled to the rough texture of his hands on top of hers, the feel of the tiny grooves as she ran her fingertips over the calluses created by so many years of carrying a sword, the scars that laced themselves together on his arms (and who knew where else? Her imagination was only able to go so far..), the tangled roughness of his hair.   
  
That particular part of her dream, as it progressed, often became detailed enough to make her blush, so she tried to reserve it until she was alone, if not in her own bed where her hands were able to help ease the ache inside her, then at least until she wasn't around other people. Her blush gave her away, always.   
  
She experienced this daydream so often while Aragorn was missing that she began to wonder about her sanity. She found every excuse to hang on Legolas' every word, and to accost each search party when they returned.  
  
But a part of her, a deep dark secret part that she refused to acknowledge, hoped that perhaps he *wouldn't* come back.   
  
For if he did not, then he was always hers. 


End file.
